Sunday, August 5, 2012

Getting Young Readers into Chapter Books

This post has two purposes. It offers suggestions for chapter books that are suitable for children aged 5-8 years. First, for you to read to your children to enrich their experience of story, language and the world and, second, for precocious young readers to do likewise, by reading the books themselves. The latter can be a challenge for parents and teachers as they quickly move from early tentative reading of predictable books to fluency in just months. By age six many young readers develop an insatiable appetite for books and can be ready (and keen) to move on to chapter books. But exercise care, for it is unwise to push young readers to read chapter books without the rich language and textual grounding of many picture books (see my previous post on the importance of picture books HERE). As well, you need to be careful that you don't push them into books with content for which they are not ready emotionally and intellectually.

Here are some quick questions that you might think about in assessing whether your child is ready:

Can the children listen for 20 minutes plus of reading aloud from picture books?

Do they seem to enjoy the text as much as the pictures?

Do they seem to relate to the characters and can they follow more complex picture books?

Do they ask you to read favourite books over and over?

Are they showing growing understanding of written language and
asking questions about it (e.g. “What does calamity mean?” “Why does it
say….?).

If you answer yes to most of these questions then they are
probably ready. Children who have been read to constantly during the
preschool years are typically ready to listen to chapter books from age 5
years and up (some even earlier). I also add that some children will
be ready before 5 years. My two daughters and my
grandchildren all started to love chapter books before 5 years of age.
The starting time will reflect their maturity, language proficiency and
the depth of the literary and narrative experiences that they have had
in the early years.

Why read chapter books to younger readers?

In a post I wrote in 2008 on ‘Guiding children’s learning’ (here)
I talked a little about Jerome Bruner’s concept of “scaffolding”. He
identified scaffolding as a process where an adult helps children to
learn in advance of their developmental level. The adult does this by
doing what the child cannot do by themselves; allowing students to
slowly take over parts of the process as they are able to do so. In
many ways, this is the most fundamental reason to read chapter books to
your children once they have become avid listeners to stories and
beginning readers themselves. They can listen to more complex stories
than they can read themselves as emerging readers.

In practical terms, chapter books offer children:

More complex narrative forms and plot development

Richer and more complex language

New areas of knowledge about their world and the human condition

Different literary devices and genres

They train your children to be able to sustain longer periods of reading

As well as the above, chapter books will enable you to build an
even richer shared literary history with your children. Shared books
will become part of your shared history within the family or your class, and more
broadly, they will help to connect your children to a literary culture
that others will share with them.

A couple of final comments before the list

Having said all of the above, there are a couple of warnings that I’d give:

Don’t push your children too quickly; all learning requires periods of consolidation before moving on to more difficult terrain.

Be aware that while your children might be able to follow the story
line, relate to the characters and so on, they may not be emotionally
ready for some of the content.

Be prepared to offer support - with chapter books you may need to
explain new words, discuss new concepts, offer new knowledge etc.

Don’t forget, that reading a chapter book still needs to be
interesting and enjoyable and that it will be harder to achieve this
without pictures so you’ll need to work harder on varying your character
voices (see my earlier post on reading to and with your children HERE).

One final comment. Don't assume that once you commence chapter
books that picture books no longer have a place. Young children still
need to read picture books and hear them read to them. They continue to
have an important role in children's literacy development throughout
the primary years of schooling (again, see my previous post on this HERE).
Some Chapter Books to try

The
list below is not meant to be extensive, just illustrative. It has a
particular Australian flavour (but not entirely). I preface the
following suggestions by saying that individual children will handle
these books at different ages. For the very youngest readers it is best
to start with books that have some illustrations to maintain interest
until they develop more 'stamina' for harder books. The age guide that I
have given is meant to be a ‘group age’ guide for teachers sharing
such books with larger groups. Parents reading to a single child will
perhaps find that their child can deal with books I’ve listed at an
earlier stage. Conversely, your child might not be ready for some of
these books as suggested. You may also find that they can handle even
more difficult books not on the list (but don’t forget the warnings
above).

5 comments:

Thanks for a very informative post. My husband has often read chapter books (a few chapters at a time) every evening to our children. He starts them off with the Chronicles of Narnia and it has become a favorite amongst my 7 children. My grown children still cherish their memories of having the series read to them each night when they were small, and my young children are loving the experience now.

Rich literacy experiences from the start!

Follow this blog

Search this blog

Follow on Facebook

Receive new posts by email

Google+ Followers

About Me

I am a Professor of Education at The University of Sydney, Australia. I have spent a large part of my adult life as a teacher, academic, researcher and senior university administrator. My interests are varied, including how children learn language and literacy, the nature and construction of meaning, curriculum, pedagogy, and adult learning.